Al Harris has hit the open market after clearing waivers, according to the National Football Post, and the agent for the veteran cornerback told the website he is currently in negotiations with multiple teams.
Is one of those teams the Vikings?
It's believed Minnesota has at least expressed some level of interest in the 35-year-old Harris, whose 2009 season came to an end when he suffered a significant injury to his left knee in Week 11 while attempting to make a tackle on San Francisco wide receiver Michael Crabtree. Harris opened this season on the physically unable to perform list and the Packers decided to cut him on Monday.
It's unclear if the Vikings are one of the teams with which Bechta is currently negotiating.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did a story on Harris this offseason in which the amount of damage done to his knee was describted. "It is a very rare injury," said Joe Caroccio, who began work with Harris at the Atlantic Rehab Center in Florida in January. "He had a torn anterior cruciate ligament, torn lateral collateral ligament, torn iliotibial band, fibular collateral ligament and torn lateral hamstring."
The Vikings have been using Antoine Winfield and Asher Allen as their starting cornerbacks with Chris Cook, Lito Sheppard and Frank Walker behind them. Cook, Sheppard and Walker all have seem time in the nickel defense and Sheppard was even used in a dime defense last Sunday against Arizona.
Walker was signed by the Vikings after Cedric Griffin suffered another ACL injury on Oct. 11 that will keep him out for the season. Walker, who hadn't been with a team before joining Minnesota, missed the Cardinals game because of a hamstring injury; Sheppard had missed the previous two games because of a broken hand.
Harris had been practicing with the Packers before they decided to let him go. Any team that signs him is going to want to have its own doctors perform a physical to see how his knee has progressed.
